■ Monitors
Chunghwa to lift LCD price
Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管) will raise the price of 15-inch liquid-crystal displays next month, a Chinese-language newspaper said, citing Lin Wei-shan (林蔚山), the president of Tatung Co (大同), the company's parent. Chunghwa Picture will lift the price by US$5 to US$10 per unit, the newspaper said, citing Lin. The company may return to profit in the third quarter after incurring a loss in the first half, the report said, quoting the president. The Taipei-based company, which is expected to report second-quarter earnings by the end of next month, had a net loss of NT$4 billion (US$126 million) in the first quarter, according to the figures released by the company.
■ Automakers
VW details Proton offer
Volkswagen AG has proposed buying more than 50 percent of Proton Holdings Bhd, Malaysia's largest carmaker, the Edge weekly magazine said, citing officials it didn't name. Europe's largest carmaker outlined its proposal when meeting with senior officials from Proton and Khazanah Nasional Bhd, the Malaysian government's investment agency that owns 43 percent of Proton, the report said. Hyundai Motor Co, South Korea's largest automaker, is also interested in a strategic alliance with Proton for the Malaysian carmaker's assembly plant and platforms, the report said. Khazanah Nasional said on Friday it doesn't plan to sell any of its 43 percent stake in Proton to Volkswagen. Proton's domestic market share has dropped from 57 percent in 1993 to around 30 percent in June as the government lifted protective tariffs on foreign-made cars due to a regional free trade agreement.
■ Finance
Temasek renews offer
Singapore's Temasek Holdings Pte asked the board of directors at Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行) to reconsider its takeover offer, two Chinese-language newspapers reported yesterday, citing unnamed board directors at the Taiwanese lender. Morgan Stanley, Temasek's financial adviser, sent a letter to Chang Hwa's directors on Friday, seeking to explore possibilities of taking control of the lender, the two business dailies said. Temasek's move came after Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) on July 22 won a bid to buy 1.4 billion new preferred shares of Chang Hwa, which upon completion of the transaction would make it the biggest shareholder. Temasek is Singapore's state-owned investment company. It was reported to be one of five potential bidders for the stake in Chang Hwa.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San